More than 700,000 Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) are awaiting collection at the Oyo State office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ibadan, Mutiu Agboke, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) has said.
Agboke, who disclosed this on Wednesday, added that the uncollected PVCs were enough to make somebody governor of the state. He called for the assistance of the traditional institution and other critical stakeholders in the polity to sensitise voters to collect their cards.
The REC spoke when he visited the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Lekan Balogun, Alli Okunmade II at his Alarere residence, where he present the Olubadan with the online voter registration steps’ poster.
He said the over 700,000 uncollected PVCs were enough to make somebody the state governor, noting that the total votes secured by two governorship candidates with the highest votes in the 2019 governorship election were not up to 700,000 votes.
Aside from the collection of PVCs by the residents, the REC also urged the monarch to help appeal to the various political parties to play the game according to the rules of engagement, saying, ”INEC is doing everything possible to ensure hitch-free elections, but, we need the cooperation of the political parties by adhering to the rules.
“When the law says no to vote-buying, it is not INEC that goes about with money at the polling centres, the political parties are the ones. We started preparations for the next elections immediately after the 2019 elections and the results of our preparations manifested in the successful conduct of elections in Edo, Kogi, Bayelsa and Anambra States.
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“In addition, we had other bye-elections that were successfully conducted and we are out again to ensure that the 2023 elections are without hiccups of any form, but, we can only achieve this with the support and cooperation of all the stakeholders which formed part of our visit here”, the REC stated.
The REC, who hailed the emergence of the monarch as Olubadan, said INEC would from next week begin the fourth phase of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) which he asked the monarch to help appeal to the residents to take the advantage of by participating in the exercise.
Oba Balogun while responding assured the REC of the palace’s support for INEC and called for enough sensitisation of the general populace.
The monarch equally appealed to both the politicians and the electorate to work towards making Nigeria great by following the rules, adding, “there’s nothing special about the so-called advanced societies that makes them better than we blacks except that they do things rightly.”
